"I must speak, nevertheless," he said, at last. "Had I kept silent yesterday, when I shivered your happiness with my foolish words, I should have spared you much; then you had not cast away the pearl, to which I, poor fool! in a presumptuous, self-forgetting moment, stretched out my hand." Bianchi was silent--a hot flush passed over him, he tried to speak. "If I brought her back to you, and said, 'there you have her again; I do not envy you, for my heart hangs on another jewel, and it requires no sacrifice to bind us to each other,'--would you believe me, Carlo?" He saw the shifting of overwhelming emotions flit across the face of his friend. The artist supported himself against the table, his head pressed against his breast which laboured violently; his lips moved themselves, soundless. Theodore went to the door, and called "Caterina!" She had stood without, death and life before her; as she stepped slowly and with hesitating foot over the threshold, she saw Carlo standing by the table with arms outstretched towards her. His knees shook under him--with a cry of joy she cast herself upon his neck. The door had remained open--Theodore had his back turned towards it, lost in reverie over the relief of Edward, which stood sideways on its scaffolding. He heard a light rustling behind him, and turned round. At the same moment Caterina freed herself from Bianchi's arms, and started. They saw three stranger forms standing hesitating in the open doorway--an elderly pair and a fair young girl. Theodore remembered her. "We disturb you," said the old gentleman; "pray pardon us; but the door was wide open--we will come again at a more convenient time, Signor Bianchi." "Enter," said Bianchi; "you do not disturb me. Those whom you see here are a friend and--my wife--Signora Bianchi." He laid an emphasis on the last words, and glanced at Caterina, who looked up to him in a transport of happiness. Meanwhile, Theodore had retreated from before the monument. The father greeted him with his old heartiness, and then turned towards the relief. He exchanged no greeting with the women. The old lady had, at Bianchi's first word, advanced towards the artist's work, and stood speechless before it. Mary's glance rested but for a short time on the statue of her brother, and then flew to Caterina. She remembered her well. Whilst her parents stood leaning upon each other, deeply affected, before the relief, unable to tear themselves away from it, she approached Theodore; she spoke gently to him, she took his hand, her eyes overflowed. They interchanged vows, confessions, self-accusations--each anticipating the other, each outbidding the other in assurances of boundless love. No one overheard them; for even Bianchi, though he spoke not, forgot all in the eyes of his wife.